Today there exists a vast number of railroad crossings where automotive roads and highways cross railroad tracks. In early times signs were erected at such crossings to warn automotive vehicle drivers of the railroad crossing and thereby avoid the possibility of a collision with a train. Later such signs were made larger and equipped with flashing lights. Major crossings were equipped with barrier bars that were automatically raised and lowered in response to the sensed presence of a train. As roads and highways were enlarged into more than two lanes, these barriers became larger and heavier. This in turn meant that they had to be supported on stronger and stronger foundations in the ground aside the railroad crossings.
These foundations have heretofore been constructed in a number of manners. Some foundations have been formed by merely digging a hole in the ground and filling the hole with concrete to which upright signal masks were anchored. This has been costly in that it is required that mixed concrete in fluid form be transported to each site. Other foundations have been in the form of a welded, pyramidal arrays of angle irons. They however have been costly to the manufacture, transport and embed.
In more recent years railroad crossing signal and traffic control foundations have been made of precast, steel reinforced, concrete components erected one atop the other in a ground hole. This has typically been done by digging an 81/2 to 9 foot deep, generally 11 foot square hole in the ground adjacent a railroad crossing. A safety wall is then erected inside the hole to protect laborers working in the hole in case of ground wall collapse and avalanche. With workers located both within the hole and above ground, these foundations has been erected piece by piece in constructing a base upon which a relatively slender tower is built with interlocking blocks to approximately ground level. A crown, sometimes referred to as a doughnut, to which a signal mask may be mounted, is finally mounted atop the tower and the hole filled.
Foundations of the type just described have proven to be very hazardous and costly to construct. Not only is working in a 9 foot hole deep earth inherently dangerous, but the workers have to manipulate heavy concrete structures as they are lowered by cables into the holes in close proximity. Many workers have been injured and killed from time to time from earth avalanches and mishaps in offloading and manipulating the heavy concrete members. Their stability has also been lacking in high wind conditions in their less than satisfactory resistance to in-earth rotation.
Accordingly, it is seen that a railroad crossing signal and traffic control foundation has long remained needed that may be erected in a safer and more cost efficient manner. It is to the provision of such therefore that the present invention is primarily directed.